Page 64

I took in his thoughtful expression, strong nose, and the rugged outline of stubble. His eyes radiated every shade of vivid green, like a dewy meadow at dawn. He was achingly beautiful, physically, soulfully.

I touched his full lips, because I could, because he didn’t just belong to his god. He was mine, too, and he craved the affection as much as I did. “Let me guess. The ladybirds ate the pests, and the crops were miraculously saved? Famine averted?”

“Aye.” He smiled against my fingers. “The farmers owed their prosperity to the beetles and divinity who’d sent them, so they named them lady beetles. Mary beetles. The red wings represent her cloak, the black spots her sorrows.”

I lowered my hand, my limbs suddenly too heavy for my body. Something inside me pulled and pulled hard, toward the door, toward the man who’d exited through it moments ago. Where was this coming from, this impulse to follow Jesse right this minute? My mind? My heart?

My womb.

It contracted in response, and vertigo spun over me as the meaning of Roark’s story took hold. I had enough spots on my back to account for my sorrows, but I was no Blessed Lady. I wanted to fuck three men, not to become pregnant and save the world from its pests. I wanted to have sex with them for the carnal pleasure, the intimacy, and the possession. Because I loved them, greedy sinner that I was.

My legs felt weak, wobbly. I hardened my stance. “Ladybirds also bleed from their knees when they’re scared.” Startle one, and a foul-smelling fluid might drip from its joints. Something I’d read in the insect book I pilfered in the U.K. “What’s your point?”

He held my face in his hands, his jaw hardening into steel. “Part of me believes ye are meant to give the world this miracle, to bear a child that would be reared and trained by three men of three faiths and three weapons.”

I shook my head in his hands, working my throat to swallow the shock. “What?”

“That part of me heart belongs to God.” He pressed my cheek against his bare chest and wrapped his arms around my back.

Of course, he would apply his own theological beliefs to Annie’s forewarnings.

“But the other part…” He rested his lips against the top of my head. “The half of me heart that belongs to you wants an ultrasound to guaran-fecking-tee that no one can get ye with child. Because, prophecies aside, pregnancy will slow ye down, make ye weak and vulnerable. And we den’ know the effects of the virus on a babe. It could become sick in your womb. It could kill ye.”

A sharp pang stabbed in my chest. Like Jesse, he was torn between spiritual purpose and his need to protect me.

My exhale stuttered out. “Jesse won’t go there, and I’ll stop him—”

“He will, and you’re incapable of saying no to your guardians.” He pulled the strap off my shoulder and set my carbine on the ground. “I saw the chubbed-up look in his eye before he left.”

True, Jesse needed to get laid, and perhaps any woman would do at this point. It was a miserable thing to accept. He gave me his life, following my crusade and providing me unconditional protection. Yet he wouldn’t allow me to give him the simplest, most human thing. My body. I couldn’t take away his pain.

Roark circled his arms around me. “He’s fighting a battle he won’t win, love.” His accent dropped a few notches. “And so am I.”

I sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back to see his face. “You? What do you mean?”

His eyes lowered, hooding into emerald slivers. “I’m a man, first and foremost. And you’re…” Calloused fingers slid over my tailbone, crept under the hem of my shirt, and splayed across my spine. “The greatest words in the English language can’t begin to describe ye, but…”

As he studied me, I savored the oaky scent of his breath, waiting for some vulgar colloquialism I had no chance of decoding.

“When I look into your eyes, I den’ see yellow or green or… Is there even a name for that color? All I see is liquid sunshine.”

Wow. Okay. “That’s…” Decipherable. I kissed his lips. “Thank you.”

His hands moved over my hips, across my belly, and cupped my breasts beneath the shirt. “These are… bloody hell. Ye could breastfeed the baby Christ and all the animals around the manger.”

“Ew!” I knocked his hands away. “What’s wrong with you?”

Laughing, he gripped my butt and yanked my hips against his, grinding the hard evidence of his wrongness against my pubic bone.

“Ye have an arse on ye made for slapping.” He demonstrated, ripping a startled yelp from me. Then his big hands cupped and squeezed both cheeks. “I bet these steely muscles would break me knob on the way in.”